Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE BALLAD OF A LOST HOUSE, by LEONORA SPEYER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE BALLAD OF A LOST HOUSE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Hungry heart, hungry heart, where have you been?
Last Line: Over a clear and quickening sea.
Subject(s): Hearts; Houses; Hunger; Passion


I

Hungry Heart, Hungry Heart, where have you been?
I've been to a town where lives a Queen.

Hungry Heart, Hungry Heart, what did you there?
I ran all the way to a certain Square.

Hungry Heart, say what you did that for?
To find a street and a certain door;
And there I knocked my knuckles sore.

II

That was a foolish thing to do,
Alone in the night the long hours through,

Gaping there like a chalky clown,
At a stranger-door that had been your own.

Where was your pluck and where your pride?
They both were there, and love beside;
And suddenly the door swung wide.

I heard the sound of a violin
That seemed to bid me enter in:

For a fiddle's a key for many a lock,
And will open a door though it's built in rock.

III

Tell me, Hungry, what did you see?
A lighted hall where friends made free;

I trod with them a well-known stair . . .
How did you dare, Heart! How did you dare?

For a frowning face you may trust and like,
But who shall say when a smile will strike?

IV

Up the oaken stair went I,
And all made way to let me by.


Some reached a hand and some looked down,
But I never saw their smile nor frown.

I never saw familiar things
That sought me with quaint beckonings:

The carven Saints in postures mild,
Kind Virgins with the Heavenly Child,

Ladies and Knights in tapestries --
I never saw nor looked at these.

Only the Christ from a canvas dim,
Drooping there on His leafless Limb --
He looked at me and I looked at Him.

V

Where did you go, old Unafraid?
Up to a place where children played.
The happy hubbub the small three made!

Patter and prattle, and toys and games,
Dolls in rows with curious names,

Voices lifted like high thin tunes,
Lively suppers with round-tipped spoons!

Where should I go but up the stair
To the welcome I knew was waiting there?

But all was still, as only can be
A long deserted nursery;
And never a sound to succor me.

VI

So I turned to a room where a woman slept
In a gay gold bed, and near I crept,

And lingered and listened: O anguished morn,
O fluty cry of a babe new-born,
Louder than trumpeting Gabriel's horn!

O sea of Life, with Love for a chart . . .
On with the tale, old Hungry Heart!

VII

On with the tale, and on to a door
Where a man had passed to pass no more;

A quiet man with a quiet strength,
And over the threshold his shadow's length

Lay like an answer for Time to weigh;
And the dust from his feet spread thick and gray.

And I thought: Well shaken! Let friend or foe
Sweep up the dust and it please them so;

Let Lord and Valet tend to the room;
Lady and House-maid, here with the broom!

Bid Town and Tattle see to it too
That the windows be washed of the mud they threw.

Dust and ashes of what has been!
Sweep clean the house. And keep it clean.

VIII

I thought to curse, but strange, a prayer
Rose to my lips as I stood there.

And this my praying: now all good cheer
To him who sleeps where slept my dear;
For the sake of the good dreams once dreamed here.

IX

Back to the stair and down I sped,
Passing a great room table-spread;

Passing, but pausing as housewives do,
Judging the viands that came to view;

Trusting the sauce was tuned to the meat,
The wine well cooled and the pudding sweet;

Pausing, but passing --
Stay, Heart of mine,
What of the guests? For I divine
Their looks were grand and their manners fine?

X

A goodly company, I'll admit,
And some had beauty and some had wit . . .

And some you loved?
Well, what of it?

And some loved you?
Perhaps, perhaps,
With linen napkins in their laps;

With cups that foamed, and piled-up plates --
They loved me with a hundred hates.

They hated in such lovely ways,
With laughter, singing. kisses, praise --

How could I know? How could I know?
Hungry Heart, Hungry Heart, cry not so!

XI

But as I lingered watching them,
I felt a tugging at my hem --

My little dog was cowering there,
A glassy terror in its stare.

My veins turned ice: O smacking lips,
O dainty greedy finger-tips!

'Twas bones of Hungry Heart they ate,
Broken and boiled and delicate,

Platter on platter the board along,
And as they supped they sang a song,

An ancient ardent melody
About a lady passing by
Whom they must love until they die.

XII

And as they drank I saw the wine,
It never came from ripened vine,

It never was brewed in tub or vat,
Knew web of spider or squeak of rat;
But it knows their thirst and it pours for that.

A thirsty stream that none may gauge,
That none shall slake though the stream assuage,

Of wine the very counterpart,
Out of the side of Hungry Heart.

And mixed with the toast, a violin,
Mellow and merry above the din,
Held shoulder high 'neath a woman's chin.

XIII

Hungry Heart, come, make haste, make haste,
Out of the house of hopes laid waste,

Out of the town of teeth laid bare
Under its smiling debonair!

Wait not, weep not, get you gone,
Better the stones to rest upon,

The wind and the rain for a roof secure,
Hyssop and tares for your nouriture!
These shall endure. These shall endure.

XIV

I got me gone. On stumbling feet
I reached the stair and I found the street;

The door slammed to with an iron scream,
And behind it lay the end of a dream.

Behind it lifted barren walls,
And I thought of a play when the curtain falls
On a comedy written of shrouds and palls.

XV

Hungry Heart, Hungry Heart, what did you then?
I fell on my knees and I cried Amen!
But now and again . . . now and again . . .

I come to the door in the dead of night,
I wander the rooms till the panes are white;

A landlord ghost! Aye, one who knows
His lease outlived with the cock that crows,
A wraith content that contented goes.

Goes at the cry of the bird unseen
Calling the friends of what has been.

And some it names lie sleeping near --
Ah, wake them not, friend Chanticleer!

XVI

Three times it calls the end of the dream,
And still I return, for still I seem

To comfort a house that lives aloof
From all who live beneath its roof.

I must return! -- to dispossess
Those bartered walls of loneliness:

Mortar and brick and iron and bole,
Where all may pass who pay their toll;
The husk of a house that has lost its soul.

XVII

For out of that house went its soul with me,
Running and calling after me,

To bear me faithful company
Over a clear and quickening sea.





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